Jan Palach
Jan Palach ( born August 11, 1948 in Melnik, † January 19, 1969 in Prague ) was a Czechoslovak student who burned himself in protest against the suppression of the Prague Spring and against the dictates of the Soviet Union itself. He wanted to, just five months after the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in Czechoslovakia, make a stand against the withdrawal of government reforms Alexander Dubček and the consequent lethargy and hopelessness of the Czechoslovak public.
Origin January Palach
Jan Palach grew up in the small town Všetaty north of Prague. His father ran a sweet shop, which, however, in 1948 - the year of birth Palach was also the year of the communist coup in Czechoslovakia - was nationalized. Upon this Palach's father hit by factory workers. He died when Jan was thirteen years old.
In 1963 Jack on the High School in Melnik, where he graduated in 1966, to pursue higher education. Although he passed the entrance examination in philosophy, he could not work as intended start of this study, because there are too many other students had applied for a university place. Palach therefore initially studied for a semester at the Prague School of Economics. Especially during the Prague Spring of 1968 he moved to the Charles University.
Here he came up with the student protest against the suppression of the Prague Spring in contact, which expressed itself in strikes in the autumn of 1968.
Course of the action
Jan Palach was on January 16, 1969 15 to 16 clock at the steps of the National Museum, which closes the Prague's Wenceslas Square to the southeast, laid there on the edge of the fountain from his coat and briefcase in which a copy of a previous addition to his relatives and a number of his fellow students was sent message, doused with the contents of a gasoline canister, lit a match, was instantly all over his body in flames and ran out on the Wenceslas Square.
A dispatcher at the local tram stop Palach saw coming toward him, and cast his mantle upon him, even as Palach asked him with his coat to smother the flames. Then Palach fell on the road to the ground. The Dispatcher accompanied him in the ambulance arriving promptly, in which Jan Palach, who had remained conscious, informed him that the lighting had been his own act. Palach suffered severe burns to 85% of the body surface. His condition was described as very serious.
An official publication of Palach's suicide note did not take place, but at night on January 20 posters were pasted on the walls, which contained his text:
The message also held out the prospect that " more torches would go up in flames " if not the censorship lifted and the dissemination of Zprávy (News), a report drawn up under Soviet control, and printed in the GDR news sheet would be set. About the group, who belonged to Jan Palach, but has become known never more details.
Jan Palach died on January 19, 1969 his severe burns. The day before, he told a doctor that it was his duty to do so, and that he did not regret it. He reiterated that other members of his group were present, who were prepared to act as well as he did. The doctor later said Palach's mind was " clearly and logically ."
Jan Palach was interrogated by a psychologist of the Czechoslovak State Security. The audio tapes of this interrogation are still preserved. To the question " whether it would ( the burns) hurt ," he said, " Enough ." Until his death he refused painkillers to stay conscious.
After his death, leaving the leader of the located at this time in the strike students, Lubomir Holeček, on the radio the words that Palach had dictated to him three hours before his death:
Some months earlier, the Pole Ryszard Siwiec during a public event in the Warsaw stadium and in presence of hundreds of thousands of people on September 8, 1968 - burned itself - also in protest against the suppression of the Prague Spring. Four days later he died from his burns in hospital. It is hard to prove or disprove that Jan Palach has taken him as a model, as the authorities of the communist Poland made a dense veil of silence over the incident. For the first time the fact Siwiec ' two months after Palach's death in Radio Free Europe was made public. Also a connection with the monk Thich Quang Saigon Đức, who burned himself in protest against the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem himself in 1963, is a proof eludes.
Follow
On the afternoon of the death of some 200,000 people flocked together Palach in Wenceslas Square to lay down on the spot where Palach had fallen to the ground wreaths. Under the leadership of Palach's fellow students, the amount went right through the Old Town of Prague to the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University, where she the square in front of the main building of the Faculty - in through the replacement of the signs - which was called " Place of the Red Army " " Jan Palach Square " renamed. This measure was taken immediately withdraw from the governance, so that an official renaming took place only after the Velvet Revolution of 1989.
Alexander Dubček suffered at the news of Palach's death a nervous breakdown. The Soviet Union preferring not to comment on the incident, although the TASS spoke of an " anti-socialist provocation." However, the Central Committee of the CCP tried a little later, the deed Palach downplay by issued an official statement - previously had been tried to portray Palach's deed as an act of a mentally ill or not acting of their own free man. In the official statement was alleged Palach was actually a - want to pour mixture that find even under fire eaters use and do not cause serious burns could have - based in West Germany. However, his fellow students had the mixture replaced without his knowledge by gasoline.
After a minute's silence across the country on January 24 and after solemn lying in state in the Charles University at the feet of a statue of Jan Hus was Palach's funeral to a mass demonstration in which over 10,000 people participated.
Jan Palach became a martyr for a free Czechoslovakia and a strong symbolic figure. Not least because he was reburied in 1973 under pressure from the Czechoslovak authorities to the cemetery of the city Všetaty in which were not allowed to hold to avoid rallies and commemorative events passing trains each year to 16 January around and which is limited at this time accessible by car had. Jan Palach was reburied back to the Prague Olšany cemetery after the Velvet Revolution.
Already on August 22, 1969, the astronomer Luboš Kohoutek named an asteroid after Jan Palach - (1834 ) Palach. At the point in front of the National Museum, to which Jan Palach fell, now a metal cross is embedded in the pavement, which is located a few meters away from the actual point, however, since there runs a three-lane road. Not far away is located below the Wenceslas Monument, a memorial to Jan Palach and Jan Zajíc. The monument is by the sculptor Olbram Zoubek.
Successor
In the week after Palach's death another five people participated in Czechoslovakia for political reasons life, including the student Blanka Nacházelová who suffocated himself with gas, which, as she told in an unofficial widespread farewell letter, from the same motives, such as Jan Palach did. Here, the government published the intention to downplay their act in public and the opposite to operate, a fake suicide note, from which walked, that she had been forced to their act by the threat of an acid attack, with its signal with the suicide chores to start, should have been the horn of a black car a Western brand from the street.
A month later, Palach's symbolic act of the " Torch # 2 " Jan Zajíc, also repeated on Wenceslas Square. In the same year, on April 4, 1969, burned himself Evžen Plocek in Jihlava, bringing the series to the burns ceased.
Jan Palach's popularity and possibly detailed descriptions in the media have led to that later, several people have burned in the Czech Republic and this is attempted. In the spring of 2003, six young people, such as Zdeněk Adamec burned on 6 March 2003 at the same location in front of the National Museum. Adamec referred to in an article published on the internet farewell letter expressly to Jan Palach and wrote in his suicide note that democracy is nothing more than the rule of officials, money and oppressors of the people.
Filming
In memory of the self-immolation of a three-part movie with the title " The Burning Bush " (Czech: Hořící keř, English: Burning Bush) is rotated by the Polish director Agnieszka Holland. This film was sent in January 2014 by the ORF. At the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2013, the film was presented abroad.